this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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What if we never found the Rosetta Stone and could not read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Could computers or AI decipher them today?

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[โ€“] random_character_a 25 points 1 year ago

No. Link between sign and meaning (or sound) can be arbitrary.

If we knew that they were phonetic, we could get somewhere by comparing how human languages generally work, but even then we would need something to start with.

I'm guessing pure pictographs are harder, even with advanced comparative analysis.